1. Acetylene Incident Why we don’t store acetylene in a closed up vehicle!

2. Incident Description  This is an incident in Newcastle. It happened on Monday the 29th of September. A fitter with a works van left an E size Oxygen and Acetylene cylinder on the back seat of a Toyota dual cab over the weekend. The Acetylene cylinder must not have fully closed and a small leak occurred.  Over the weekend the Acetylene had accumulated in the van. On the Monday morning the fitter approached the van and opened the door, a large explosion took place. We believe the ignition could have been caused by either the internal light, the automatic door control or by a mobile phone which was on the front seat of the van. The fellow was also a smoker. He has damage to his ear drums and facial damage. As you can see by the attached photos he was very lucky.

3. What Makes Acetylene so Bad!  FLAMMABILITY LIMITS (% by volume in air): Lower: 2.5 Upper: 100 – an extremely wide range!!!!  Use or store only in a well-ventilated area. ( inside of the truck is not well ventilated)  NFPA RATINGS: Health 1; Flammability 4; Reactivity 3;

4. Modified Toyota Pick-up

5. Wider Perspective

6. Close –up inside the cab